By Dustin Volz
Published June 13, 2023
WASHINGTON—Intelligence gleaned through a surveillance program due to lapse at the end of the year helped U.S. investigators solve a 2021 cyberattack that prompted the shutdown of the largest conduit of fuel on the East Coast, and claw back millions of dollars in ransom the pipeline’s operator paid to the perpetrators, senior U.S. officials said.
The program, authorized under what is known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, enabled the administration to confirm the identity of the hacker responsible for the attack on the Colonial Pipeline, which caused a dayslong gasoline shortage, the officials said.